oth Appleton Farms is Aldi’s in-house brand name for selected meat products. I’ve reviewed quite a few of them, which you can read here, tho for some unfortunate reason, some of them are tagged “Applewood.” Oops.

I’ve even reviewed this particular product, bone-in butt ham, before, but it was made for Aldi by a different manufacturer and was injected with a brine solution, something that turns me off.

I’m delighted to report such is not the case with this one. This particular ham is made for Aldi by Fresh Mark, Inc., in Salem, Ohio. Pictures of the plant are below. They do contract manufacturing, private label and have some lines of their own like Sugardale and Superiors.

Now I’m a lazy cook, and there were long periods where I wouldn’t purchase anything “bone in” and it was pointed out to me on some occasion what I was missing, that food cooked with the “bone in” can be much more flavorful. Hence you’re seeing a lot of bone-in steaks in high priced restaurants these days.

Second point, is that a real “ham” comes from the butt portion of the hog, tho you will find other products labeled as “ham,” that ain’t. And under no circumstances should things like “turkey” ham be allowed to even exist.

I’ve been known to drive the back roads of places like Virginia, the Carolinas, Missouri, and Kentucky looking for small smokehouses – in search of ‘quality’ product, cured and smoked to perfection.

But for a value priced product, this is OK. It is VERY mildly seasoned and the smoke is barely detectable. It is fully cooked right out of the package.

On the occasion that I do pick these up, I spend a couple hours cutting them up into steaks, sandwich meat, fat and bone that I use in soups and bean concoctions.

Wanna try something different? Throw one of these in a crock pot on low for 10 hours or so and have “pulled ham” sandwiches. Add barbecue sauce if you must.

But in the Carolinas, they have a special kind of “cue” they call “Gold” and instead of the meat being cooked or basted in a tomato based sauce, they use mustard, and that’s just fine. Yes, slow-cooked butt with a mustard sauce. Nice.

Aldi Tidbit. Upgrading their stores. More fresh produce. Products out of crates. Subdued lighting. Supposedly building a prototype down the street from me, I’ll keep you posted. Also adding stores lickety-split, in advance of a major competitor of theirs, LIDL, also from Germany, coming to the US. Presently both companies have about 10,000 stores (each) worldwide.